If Being Hard On Yourself Worked, It Would Have Worked By Now

sorry for being so intensely curious about the world. yeah, it's chronic. nothing to be done about it

So I asked nonbinary reddit this a while back:

And they really went all out, here are some of my favorite responses:

And of course, the most confusing of all to cis people:

Link to the original if you wanna see more responses! 

Edit: first off, wow I did not expect this to take off like it did, thank you! 

Second, this somehow made it onto TERF and anti-sjw tumblr and their replies are just proof they have no sense of humor.

I’m gonna be honest I do not care if a trans boy teen is annoying and has horrible taste in music y’all are just mean.

I’d rather hang around with Karkat who listens to Cavetown than someone who is mean.

When I was a (unmedicated, undiagnosed ADHD) kid, like, under 12, my room was a mess all the time. Not shocking.

I struggled keeping it clean.

I struggled getting it clean.

I would sincerely put in quite a bit of effort and be really proud of the progress I made. Then one of my parents would come check and see how I was doing.

"Well, you've still got a long way to go."

That sentence. I was like, 11 when my parents were saying that to me. It was crushing. All my pride and satisfaction with my work was completely gone. All my effort was worthless to them. All they saw what everything I didn't do.

At the age of ELEVEN, I knew that wasn't right. That wasn't fair. I swore to myself I would never invalidate someone's work like that.

Now, at 30, I catch myself thinking 'I cleaned up, but my apartment is still so messy.' and I flashback to standing in my bedroom as a child, hearing those fucking words from my parents.

'No. I wouldn't invalidate someone else's work. I'm not going to invalidate my own. I did good. I made progress.' and I'll list the things that I DID get done to myself.

You deserve credit for all the progress you make.

You deserve credit for all the work you do.

It doesn't matter how much work you have left.

What you accomplish, no matter how small, counts. Even when what you accomplished was taking a day to rest and recharge and give yourself a break.

Never let anyone invalidate your work. Not even you.

This, only I don't know anything about any of these things and generally would just like more friends to be quite honest, even better if they play dnd!

Trying to do the "oh I don't know Magic The Gathering, can you teach me?" thing to attract transfems, but it turns out my knowledge of Pokémon the trading card game from like 2002 will transfer plus I've played a lot of board games in general so I end up winning somehow and this ruins the romance so it doesn't work

I'm glad I only get recommended the important news

bruh i used to hide out in the library in middle school during lunch to read because the lunchroom was overstimulating and i had so many bullies and so many issues with eating in front of people so i would just skip lunch and retreat into book time in the safety of the library, and one day the librarian came over and told me the library had started a new "lounge" for honors students in a little sideroom with comfy chairs where students could snack while they read if they want

and i was today years old when i realized i never saw a single other student in that little room that definitely held storage stuff before then and that the librarian absolutely made that up so i would have a safe space to read and be alone and eat in the library

Fun fact. Nothing can stop you from finding the oldest art your friend has ever made on their blog and reblogging it.

man sometimes i really want to get back into welding but then i remember that the guys from the first course i took won’t be there and change my mind